


All these Monsters

by Amrais



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brothers, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Mental Institutions, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Traumatized Nick, Wesen, protective Monroe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-02-08 13:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12865923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amrais/pseuds/Amrais
Summary: Nick thinks he’s crazy, as he keeps seeing these Monsters everywhere.Monroe watches as Rosalee battles with her daemons and jealousy brings out the worst in him, that’s how he meets Nick.AU where they all are Teenagers and Monroe stumbles over a traumatized Nick and becomes his big brother.





	1. Her red scarf

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of an AU where Nick is taken in by Monroe’s Family and Monroe becomes his nerdy, clock obsessed older brother was in a list with Fic ideas that a user published. The list seems to be deleted, as I can’t find it anywhere anymore.  
> Well, maybe this user is still active and is going to read this fic and hopefully enjoys it.  
> Just two things I wanted to mention:  
> English is not my first language, so don’t be shy to comment on any mistakes, please.  
> I wanted to have Rosalee in it, because she’s my absolute girl crush...  
> Kudos & Comments are very welcome!  
> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy!

He could smell her, even if there were two rows of tables in between them and a lot of other people around. But they were mostly human, but she, she was a Fuchsbau. Her scent was warm and somehow furry, a faint odor of spices, from her parents spice shop, clinging to her all the time. Her scent reminds him of Christmas, like everything about her does, her chocolate brown eyes, her shiny hair that just has the color of gingerbread.  
Monroe has to keep himself from staring at her the whole time and actually eat his lunch.  
Rosalee looks beautiful today. She wears a thick off white wool jumper and a red scarf. A red scarf, damn it, how is he supposed to concentrate on anything else than her?  
He sighs, before he bites into his sandwich. She’s unreachable for him.  
Of course she’s friendly and sometimes, not as often as he would like, they talk. After all, there are not too many Wesen in school with them. There are four Mauzherz siblings, but they are mostly younger than him and Rosalee.  
And then of course there are the two skalongecks that are walking in right now, sitting down left and right from Rosalee, wearing wide grins on their faces.  
They are Twin brothers, Josh and Billy Dun and Monroe can’t stand them. Mostly he hates them for being around Rosalee all the time. He doesn’t want these nasty creatures around his sweet, kind Rosalee, but he can do nothing about it.  
He has to mobilize all his self control not to go over there and wipe the smile from their faces by using his fists. He growls quietly before finishing his sandwich.  
The brothers are good looking, well, at least in their human forms, but Monroe isn’t too thrilled with his own reflection when he’s woged either, so he can’t really take comfort in the fact that they are disgusting when woged. They both have sandy blond hair, blue eyes, just the average jock guys who always have the majority of cheerleader girls dancing around them.  
Monroe on the other hand is more the loner kind of guy. He’s tall and a little bit clumsy, getting nervous easily and then he starts rambling. He likes to wear Flanell shirts and cardigans, and in his free time he fixes antique clocks with his father. He has heard other kids call him weird behind his back, but luckily they leave him alone.

Rosalee smiles at him, when he walks by, and a 9th grader, who walks in front of him, goes down when Monroe grips his shoulder to keep himself from stumbling. The boy looks up at him accusingly and Monroe bends down to help him up and apologizes hastily. But Rosalee smiled at him. So Monroe doesn’t really feel sorry, he might not even truly be present. Just, her soft smile and her soft eyes.  
He has to get a grip. He shakes his head to get her image out of his brain.

The rest of the school day passes uneventful and the parking lot is almost empty when Monroe drags his cello to the car. 

The two skalogecks are leaning on their car, smoking cigarettes, while Rosalee sits on the low wall next to them, dangling her legs. 

“I don’t know Billy,” She says, “my parents expect me to be home. I’m supposed to help out in the shop.”  
“Oh come on Rosie, don’t be so boring. It’s good stuff, we’re going to have fun.” Josh tries to persuade her, twisting one of her shiny hair strands around his finger, just the sight of it makes Monroe want to puke and bite the guys fingers.  
He casually strolls over to their little group.  
“Hey Rosalee… Josh, Billy” he greets the brothers unwillingly.  
All three of them stare at him and he awkwardly twists his hands.  
“Monroe, what’s up?” Rosalee tilts her head a bit, and it’s so cute that Monroe temporarily forgets what he was going to say.  
“Yeah, what do you want, Blutbad?” Josh steps in front of Monroe, threateningly playing with his muscles. Monroe leans to the side, so he could talk to Rosalee.  
“Your Brother called me and asked if I could pick you up. They need you in the shop.” He lies nonchalantly.  
“Freddy called you?” Rosalee asks surprised. “Is something wrong?” She hops down from the wall.  
Monroe immediately feels guilty for the worry lines he has put on her face.  
“Oh no, no. Don’t worry, just a lot to do. That’s all. Don’t worry.”  
“Ok.” She steps around Josh, who still tries to stare Monroe down, who blatantly ignores him.  
“Bye boys.” She waves to them, before walking away, just next to Monroe.  
She smiles when he opens the door for her.  
“So I didn’t know you were friends with my brother?” Rosalee questions while Monroe goes into reverse.  
“Well yeah, I mean we talk sometimes… but to be honest he, ah, he didn’t really call me…” he awkwardly scratches the nape of his neck. “But you seemed to have a hard time to get these guys off your back.” He says quietly.  
Rosalee frowns to that.  
“They are my friends you know, I don’t want them off my back.” She sounds angry and when Monroe looks at her, she has her arms crossed over her chest and stares at him with a frown.  
“I know, I’m sorry. I just thought…” he shakes his head, “You know what? I’m sorry Rosalee, I’m really sorry, I just wanted to help. But you’re right, I shouldn’t have interfered. I’m sorry.” He apologized again. He glances over to her, noticing that her features have gone soft again. He feels her hand on her arm, it’s soft and warm and gives him goosebumps.  
“It’s okay.” She says and he can hear the smile in her voice. He has to force himself to concentrate on the road, so he won’t cause an accident.  
She takes her hand away again and the spot where she touched him suddenly feels so cold.  
“You heard about Mrs. Spencer?” She changes the subject.  
“From the Eisbieber Family down the road?”  
“Yeah, you know that they take care of some foster kids? One of them beat her up!” She tells him, visibly upset.  
“What? Why?” Monroe pictures the petite and gentle Mrs. Spencer and can’t think of any reason why anyone would hurt her.  
“The kid wouldn’t say. But it was pretty bad. She’s still in hospital.”  
“And you say a kid did it?” Monroe can’t believe it.  
“I’ve heard he’s only 12. He must be disturbed, I mean why would he do such a thing, who knows what he has been through, but still… poor Mrs. Spencer.” She shakes her head sadly, while Monroe pulls up in front of her house.  
“Thanks for the ride.” She says, climbing out of the yellow beetle, that is Monroe’s pride and joy.  
“You’re welcome.” He says warmly, he would love to lean over and kiss her, but he only smiles and watches her disappear into the shop. Then he starts the engine again.


	2. The monster in the mirror

Nick sits in his room, arms wrapped around his knees, staring off into the space. He’s back in the Forster group home, he was before. He doesn’t quite like it here, but he’s thankful that he scraped by being send to juvie once again. He has heard terrible things about it. Luckily they hadn’t send him back to the hospital either. He had learned not to tell the truth. He never talked to them about seeing people change into monsters right before his eyes anymore. He had learned his lesson. Seeing monsters was crazy and crazy people were fed pills and locked in. Maybe he really was crazy. Well, for him it felt so real he nearly was convinced that it wasn’t him who was crazy but anybody else, but there also was a nagging doubt, telling him, that being convinced to be the only one sane was a telltale sign of madness.  
The pills they forced him to take weren’t helping, he still saw them monsters, they only slowed him down, so much, that fighting was hard. He’s got a scar, running from his left shoulder across his chest. A nurse put it there, suddenly turning into some bird like creature, when he struggled against her grip. Only screaming had saved him that day, screaming for his dear life so loud, that three other nurses had rushed into his room, separating him and the monster. Of course she told them, that he had done the injury to himself and when she had tried to stop him, he had attacked her. They knocked him out with a high dose of tranquilizers and in the end he had been thankful for that, because otherwise he would have been scared out of his mind, that she would come back to kill him. After that night he never saw her again.  
This time they only had send him to an psychiatrist, who after listening to his story about him being scared by an angry Mrs. Spencer and lashing out to protect himself, (he doesn’t consider this to be a lie even) prescribed him a different medication again and then brought him back to the foster home he’d been before. It’s too loud and too crowded for his liking, he’s always on high alert, but till now, nothing strange has happened.

He’s mostly alone in his room, his roommate stays away from him as much as possible. He even sneaks out to sleep in someone else’s room. Probably on the floor, if nobody is willing to share a bed with him. This might has to do with the knife Nick held to the younger boy’s throat just after he learned they would have to share the room. He’s very sorry that he scared him so much, but he had to see if he was one of them. Nothing had happened, except the boy had wet his jeans in fear.  
But at least this little episode has the benefit of being left alone by everyone. 

Nick slides down from the bed, sitting down in front of the body length mirror with crossed legs.  
He stares at himself. He is just a little bit too pale to look healthy, his blue grey eyes, changing to greenish sometimes are just like his dads, at least that’s what aunt Marie used to tell him. They are bloodshot and so tired. He stares so long into his own face, that it becomes more and more grotesque to him. Maybe he’s the monster? Maybe he’s just as bad and vicious as everyone thinks he is? Raging against everyone who wants to help him, hurting himself and others. Maybe he’s just fighting his own phantasm. He feels so lost and he wants to cry, but there are no tears left. There’s nothing but cold, empty darkness inside him.  
He clenches his fist and pulls his arm back. With all his anger and despair he punches his own reflection right in the face. The mirror doesn’t break, but it quivers a bit, making his face morph even more into a grimace. His hand hurts, but not enough. His anger needs more, he wants to destroy everything around him. He jumps up and pounds his fists into the wall, once, twice. He tears down the posters, that someone has hung there, in an attempt to make the room more personal. He swipes all the things down from the dresser, not caring one bit, that the lamp breaks in the process. Again he smashes his fists into the wall, until the pain makes his eyes water and his knuckles are bleeding.  
Panting hard, he stands in the middle of the room, the anger still is burning in him, raw and untamed, but his body is too exhausted.  
He stumbles over to his bed and curls into himself on top of his comforter. He buries his face into the Flannel shirt that belonged to his aunt, and now, finally, the tears are flowing. Mindful not to smear his blood on it, he hugs the shirt tighter. Tomorrow will be the first day of school, but Nick doesn’t care. School doesn’t mean anything when you are haunted by monsters.


	3. Gone

Monroe’s hand trembles when he tries to put the tiny gear wheel back at its place. He trembles so heavily, that he has to grab his wrist with his other hand to stabilize himself enough to put the tiny thing safely aside and not drop it haphazardly into the clockwork. If that happened he would have to take the whole clock apart again.  
He sits down defeated and sighs. He can’t stop thinking about Rosalee. Normally working at a clock calms him down, no matter what, but today, not even working on this gorgeous 1920 pocket watch from Junghans has the ability to calm him down right now. Something’s wrong with Rosalee. He’s not entirely sure what, but she has changed so much in the last few months.  
The first thing he noticed was, that she smelled different, sharp like chemicals and a bit sour, as if she’d been sick, just moments before. Then he worried about how pale she was. Her ivory skin seemed almost white and so thin, that he could see the slightly blue hue of the blood vessel under her skin.  
If it was even possible, he started to observe her more closely. He noticed how her moods seemed to be extremely unstable. One minute he saw her laughing with her friends and when he followed her, when she excused herself, he found her crying her eyes out in an empty classroom. But when he had asked what was wrong, she only smiled through her tears and mumbled something about pms. He was to embarrassed to ask further questions, but he didn’t believe her.  
Worried he watched as she was subtly losing weight. As the months were ticking by, Rosalee seemed to be on edge, a little bit more every day.  
Her eyes were red rimmed all the time, as if she had been crying the whole night, her usually clear skin, was blotched with inflammations and her long, brown hair had lost its shine.  
Monroe noticed how she kept to herself more and more. That was if she showed up at all. Whenever Monroe tried to start a conversation with her, she always came up with some excuse to leave or to be left alone.  
He was convinced that she was sick, or maybe depressed. He even thought about eating disorders. But then he heard about the rumors and everything suddenly made sense. Drugs.  
But it was only a vague whisper and nobody could tell him more.  
And now, Rosalee had disappeared, just as he had worked up the courage to ask her about it, she didn’t show up at school. The whole week she hadn’t been there and Monroe was left staring at her empty desk in English and Math. He was sure that he had missed some important lectures, but he couldn’t care less. He just wanted Rosalee to be safe and happy. 

He decides to give up on working on the clock for today, it’s no use and he thinks he eventually will do more damage than good. Until his mother calls him down for dinner, he just sits and stares at the minutes ticking by on his favorite cuckoo clock. 

It’s after lunch the next day, when he gives up on waiting and hoping, that Rosalee will show up. Maybe even refined and healthy after her timeout. But no such thing happens and she’s still not there.  
He wipes his sweaty hands on his trousers, as he walks up to the twins in the parking lot. He’s not afraid to talk to them, he’s afraid to ask about Rosalee and he’s scared of their answers.  
“Hi guys,” He says with the most friendly smile he can muster, but it sure does looks more like a pained grimace than anything else.  
They’re heads snap up simultaneously and they both stare at him.  
“What do you want, Blutbad?” The left one hisses, Monroe is not sure if it’s Josh or Billy and he really doesn’t care either.  
“I wanted to ask you about Rosalee, you know, because she hasn’t been around lately. I wondered if you know where she is. I mean maybe she’s sick, or maybe she visits her aunt, you know, the one in Seattle…” he finishes weakly, as he notices that he has started on rambling again. He shuts his mouth.  
One of the brothers looks amused, but the other one looks angry. He hisses and takes a step forward, but his brother holds him back by the shoulder.  
“Well, well,” he says slowly, still holding on to his brother. “So the beast is looking for the princess, isn’t that sweet.” He grins while saying it. Monroe only stares at him confused.  
“Let us know when you found her, because we have no clue where this little bitch might be.” He let’s go of his brother in favor to cross his arms in front of his chest. Monroe cringed, when he heard the skalogeck call her a bitch, but he chooses to overhear it, choosing to ask more questions.  
“What do you mean, you don’t know where she is?” He asks puzzled.  
“The fucking slut took our money and disappeared. Nobody has seen her since.” The other one speaks aggressively.  
Monroe blinks at them in shock. “Do you have any idea where she might be?” He asks quietly.  
The boy, who Monroe thinks might be Billy shakes his head. For a split second Monroe thinks that he might be a bit sad about that, but before he can take a closer look at him, his brother speaks up.  
“No, we don’t know and we don’t care. As far as we know that bitch is getting high in a Trauminsel somewhere or she’s sucking dick, to earn herself some money to buy drugs.” He brings his hands down over his groin and imitates getting a blowjob. That bawdy gesture is what pushes Monroe over the edge. He suddenly can’t control himself anymore. He feels the Woge taking away all his complex feelings of worry and love and sorrow and he’s left with the simple, raw feeling of pure rage. He punches Josh right in the face, before the skalongeck can even Woge or defend himself. But it only takes a moment of shock, before his brother reacts and jumps into the fight. In mere seconds the three of them are fighting, clawing, biting, hissing and growling at each other.  
It also doesn’t take long for other students to notice that something is going on and soon they are surrounded by a crowd of yelling people. But it takes a while until the teachers, who had been alarmed, are successful in separating them. It needs tow grown adults to hold back Monroe and another three to contain the brothers. 

Monroe barely realizes that his math teacher is leading him to the principals office, all the while talking to him. He sounds upset, but Monroe isn’t listening. All he can think about is Rosalee and that he is going to find her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Hiatus, not abandoned. Most likely to be continued in April!


	4. Monsters

Now Monroe is stuck with detention, over two weeks, being trapped in a classroom, while it would be so much more important to use this time to try and find Rosalee. He has no specific plan on how to find her. He just walks through the streets asking for her. He tries it with the shady looking people and more often then not they turn out to be Wesen. He wonders why that might be. But maybe it’s the temper most of them have to deal with, or the general feeling of not fitting in this society, so that they don’t even try. It’s a lonely, dirty world out there and his stomach clenches nervously when he thinks that Rosalee is left all alone to deal with it.  
The two brothers are in detention too and they have taken opposite ends of the classroom, what doesn’t mean that they aren’t staring at each other hatefully. Monroe has taken a seat not far from a boy he doesn’t recognize. He’s younger than him. With dark hair and blue eyes, that are filled with a distinctive mistrust against the whole world. He’s tense the whole time, looking around nervously as if he’s expecting to be attract any second. He even thinks that he saw him hiding a switchblade up the sleeve of his too big hoody. Monroe wonders what might have happened to him. He’s so pale and looks so tired, his skin almost translucent. He isn’t surprised when the kid falls asleep, head sunken to his chest, out of pure exhaustion by the looks of it. Monroe decides to let him sleep, because the teacher isn’t paying attention anyway, reading a book that looks nothing like classical literature.  
Soon he realizes his mistake, as the boy starts to murmur and fidget. He’s having a bad dream, that much is clear. Monroe extends his hand to poke him in the side with the intention to wake him up. The boy startled violently and opens his eyes. But he’s still deep into his dream, eyes unseeing. And the suddenly he starts to scream, covering his head with his arms, fighting invisible enemies. He doesn’t stop to scream and suddenly few students that are gathered in the room for one or another broken rule are on their feet, staring at the screaming teenager in shock. The teacher takes way too long to react and by the time he reaches the boy, he has stopped screaming, but now rocks back and forth, muttering under his breath. Monroe thinks he can hear the words ‘monsters’ and ‘kill me’. He’s not sure if a school is the right place for this clearly disturbed teenager. As the teacher is incompetently just standing there, trying to calm the other students down, Monroe crouches next to the kid, attempting to help him out of his panic.  
“Hey, everything is alright.” He says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. The boy stares at him with his blue eyes and Monroe shivers to see so much emptiness in them. It’s like the kid is barely alive, just a shell of anger and fear.  
“The monsters, they are everywhere. They trying to kill me. They will kill you too, but you can’t even see them. Can you?” He whispers, suddenly calm, matter of fact kind of voice and Monroe stumbles back. This is just crazy and it’s freaking him out. The boy gets up and walks out of the classroom as if nothing had happened. Everyone stares after him, stares at the now closed door he had slipped through. The teacher doesn’t know what to do, is lost for words and just sends them home, half an hour before their time would be up. They all leave, not yelling and screaming like they would normally do, but quietly talking amongst them, somehow rattled to the bone, by what they witnessed. 

That night, when he walks through the nightly city, after he slipped from his bedroom, on his quest to find Rosalee, the boys empty blue eyes are haunting him. It’s like they’ve seen terror nobody is able to understand. And when he looks around him, he sees all the violence Portland’s streets have to offer, sees how cruel people are to each other, Kehrseite and Wesen alike he wonders if the boy isn’t right, the world is full of monsters, but he’s not sure he meant it like that.

He gets a lead on Rosalees whereabouts though, an timid looking Eisbiber girl tells him she has seen her not two days ago. She just can’t remember exactly where, somewhere in the east of town. Monroe takes her to a fast food restaurant and buys her something to eat, he knows that if he gave her money she would spend it on drugs. He doesn’t want to be responsible for that. He hopes that Rosalee has something to eat too.


	5. The grimoire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me sooo long to update this story, but in the last two weeks I had two lovely reminders that this story still exists and so very nice request to update, so I put my head into it and wrote this. I hope it’s worth the wait. Thanks again for reading this and still requesting updates, that’s very motivating!!

There’s nothing new about Rosalees whereabouts for weeks now. Monroe still is out there every free minute, looking for her. But there are no new leads. Most of the people he talks to suggest that she’s left town. Maybe to San Francisco or Seattle they are not sure. They look at him with hazy eyes, their cheeks are sunken in and their hands are shaking. He shudders, imagining that Rosalee, beautiful, wonderful Rosalee, might be just the same as these hopeless creatures by now.  
Monroe is loosing hope to find her before it’s too late and as a result he’s not sleeping, not eating. He even isn’t interested in his beloved clocks anymore. His parents are worried, but he can’t tell them what’s wrong. They wouldn’t understand. They would point out that the Framtons, a Blutbaden family they are friends with have a lovely daughter, just his age. At least his mother likes to point it out. So he doesn’t tell his parents, they would never understand. So he tells them he’s stressed out about school. That would actually might be true, if he would pay attention enough to even realize how much he’s fallen behind. The only thing that catches his attention and pulls him out of his numb stupor is the boy. The younger one. The one with the scars on his hands and neck. The one that most kids are afraid of. But Monroe can’t shake the feeling that the boy himself is scared to death. He has tried to talk to him, but hadn’t gotten any response, he had only stared at him. The fear and suspicion, deeply rooted in those green eyes is haunting him.

The new school sucks, as every other school he’s been before, but until now he hasn’t had any encounters with these monsters who are after him. He’s been to so many doctors, psychiatrist and clinics, trying to convince him that they are not real. That something is wrong with his head and he’s only imagining things. Nobody believes him when he tries to tell them about the attacks that put him and everyone around him in danger. He has the scars to proof it, but they only say that he must have done them to himself. But here he hasn’t been attacked for weeks and everybody stays away from him, except that strange, lanky kid, a bit older than him, wearing clothes that seem fitting for a granddad. Not that he’s an expert in fashion, he’s wearing what people are giving to him, although he prefers black, oversized hoodies, he feels safer when he can cover his face with a hood. The one he’s wearing right now, he has stolen from a punk shop. Anyway that Dude was trying to talk to him, asking basic questions. He didn’t bother to answer, he wasn’t looking for someone to talk to. Not anymore. He had given up the hope to find someone who would understand. He just wanted to be left alone.

He’s supposed to take the bus from school to the group home, but he prefers to walk. It’s safer walking, at least that’s leaving him with the chance of running, should there be an other attack.  
He rounds the corner, cautiously as ever and suddenly comes face to face with the Shaun, the biggest bully in his class. He’s been bothering Nick for the last few days, trying to provoke a fight with him. Just that he doesn’t look like him anymore, his features are morphed into something bull like, with small horns breaking out of his forehead.  
Nick reacts instantly, pushing against the beast chest. The Boy-Bull seems to be stunned by the force Nick uses and he stumbles backwards.  
“Grimm!” He gasps.  
This strange word is thrown at him nearly every time some lunatic tries to hurt him and Nick has no idea what it might mean. Maybe this is all a strange cult and for some reason, they are after him. But Nick doesn’t feel like asking questions right now. He turns around and runs. The other boy tries to hold him back, wrestle him down, but he only gets hold of Nicks backpack and rips it off his shoulders.  
He doesn’t dare to look back, even if his backpack contains something that is very dear to him, Nick knows that he can’t stop running. So he also doesn’t see the other creature jumping in the bull-boys way. Angrily he pushes the boy back, red eyes shimmering with rage.  
“Leave the boy alone.” He yells, it’s more like roar, rattling the younger Wesen to the core.  
Immediately the boy turns back to his human form. He’s shaking and nearly crying. He still holds Nicks backpack in his hands.  
“You don’t understand…” he stutters our. “He’s a Grimm!” He looks as he might just throw up on the spot.  
Monroe laughs out loud. “Don’t be ridiculous!” He says, than he rips the backpack out of the younger boys hands. He puts his face very close to Shaun’s.  
“You’ll leave that boy alone! If not, you’ll have to deal with me! Do you understand?”  
The boy nods silently, before turning around and running away in the opposite direction. Monroe looks after him, until he’s sure he’s really going. Then he sighs and opens the backpack, looking for a address to deliver the backpack to. He pulls out a black drawing book and is left breathless when he opens it. Right on the first page, there’s a drawing of a Hexenbiest starring at him. Quickly he thumbs through the book. On every page there’s another image of a Wesen. Next to the drawings are the encounters written down in detail. Also there a denials of being crazy and heartbreaking pleads for sanity, for an understanding on what is happening smeared in bold black letters all over the paper. This grimoire looks like the diary of a lunatic.  
So Shaun has told the truth and Nick indeed is a Grimm. Monroe stares at the book in his hands and doesn’t know what to do now.


	6. Breaking point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fastest update so far? Thanks to my lovely readers, for your support!! It’s a short chapter, I hope you’ll enjoy anyhow. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think...

Rosalee wakes up shivering. It’s cold and dark in the abandoned house she and a few others have claimed for themselves. There’s nothing anymore, no running water, no electricity and certainly no heating. Just mold, creeping up the walls, making the wallpaper peel off and rotten, creaking floorboards, with a home to a whole family of rats underneath. She has pulled her mattress into a corner, as far away from the other as possible. She doesn’t trust them. And why would she? They are addicts, like herself.  
She sits up, wraps the thin, dirty blanket tighter around herself, but it doesn’t help much, she’s still freezing. It’s getting colder by the days now, soon it will be winter. She planed to get to California before September, preferably to L.A. But now she’s stuck here, in Salem. Her money had barely lasted to get even there.  
She had worked as a waitress for a few weeks and during this time she could afford a cheap motel room, but then the nights out got longer, the itch to get high became stronger with each day and finally she was fired because she failed to come to work on time. She hadn’t bothered to look for a new job.  
After that everything went downhill pretty fast. 

Even now, right after waking up, she can feel the jitters of her addiction in her body. They are kind of distant right now, but in a few hours she knows that she will shake with need. And she needs to eat too. She doesn’t has any appetite but she knows that she has to eat anyway, otherwise her body will wilt away and she won’t even notice. She wraps her hand around her wrist. The watch she used to wear isn’t there anymore, absent like her rings and her grandmothers necklace, sold with everything else that had some kind of value.  
Her fingers meet a lot sooner than they used to, circling her wrist. She suddenly feels so lonely, there’s nobody here to care for her, to feed her and to keep her warm. She misses her mom, fussing over her, misses her dad giving her a kiss on her forehead, she even misses her older brother teasing her. Hot tears are running down her face. She can’t go home anymore, not like this, they would be so ashamed of her. She’s so ashamed of herself. And so she sits there, in the cold dark house, trying to mask the sound of her loneliness. 

Nick has locked himself in his room. It’s forbidden around here, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel safe here, he never feels safe anywhere, but a locked door is better than nothing.  
There’s no way he’s going back to this school again

Monroe’s phone rings while he’s still staring at the drawings Nick made.  
Like in trance he reaches for the phone and answers it, without looking for the callers Id.  
“Yeah?” He says.  
“Are you the guy looking for Rosalee?” A girls voice says and the Grimms notebook is forgotten at once.  
“Yes,” he practically yells into the phone. “Do you have any news?” His heart is beating fast.  
“My friend saw her last weekend. Meet me at 10 pm tonight and I tell you where. Lownsdale square park, by the statue. Don’t forget to bring the money.” It clicks and she’s gone, Monroe doesn’t even have a clue who he’s supposed to meet tonight, but he reckons that he’ll recognize her. Ungraciously he stuffs the notebook in his backpack and and finally goes home. 

Nick is trying to think, to come up with a plan, but his head is pounding. He is sitting in the corner of his room, his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking slightly back and forth to calm himself. If he tells them what he saw, they will making him go back to the mental hospital, they will make sure that he takes his pills, but he knows that these pills are not helping him. He can’t run away, because living on the street is even more dangerous for him than to stay here, where everyone thinks he’s crazy.  
Maybe he’s crazy, on such a high level that not even the best doctors and the strongest medication are able to cure him. There’s nowhere to go for him, there’s nowhere he can live in peace. There’s no way he’ll ever be free from these horrible creatures trying to take his life. So there is no way but one. Slowly he reaches in the front pocket of his jeans, feeling for his knife.


	7. Traveling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put a warning for the suicide attempt before this chapter. I don’t think it’s too graphic, but if you are sensitive to that topic it might affect you.

There is no need to leave a note or something, there’s nobody he owes an explanation to. Nobody he needs to say goodbye to. Oddly, for a moment he sees the face of the boy from school flash before his eyes. The one that had been nice to him. But that’s no reason to hesitate and so he doesn’t. He’s not afraid, not anymore.

There’s someone at his door knocking, but Nick ignores it. He couldn’t get up anymore, even if he’d wanted to. The hammering on the door is getting louder, more persistent and then it is fading away, slowly. Tuning in and out. The pain has become so overwhelming that he hardly feels it anymore. The blood, constantly streaming out of the self inflicted wounds is warm and slippery, his hands are slick with it. It’s too hot and then it’s too cold and he can’t keep himself from whimpering.  
He can feel himself getting weaker, sleepy. It almost would feel peaceful, if he wasn’t in so much pain. He closes his eyes. 

The Girl Monroe is meeting is dressed in a mini skirt, that barely covers her private parts. She looks too young to be on the profession she’s so obviously dressed for. She looks bored while she’s waiting for him. Suddenly feeling quite shy he approaches her carefully.  
She smiles shortly at him, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.  
“Hey.” She says. “You’re the one looking for Rosie?”  
Monroe nods enthusiastically. “Yes. You said that your friend had seen her?”  
“Money first.” She extends her hand.  
He hands her two fifties, neatly folded. She stuffs them into her bra.  
“She’s in Salem. My friend says that she’s working as a waitress at a diner. She gives him a folded note. “That’s the address.” She blows him a kiss. “Hope you’ll find her.” Suddenly she looks sad, tired. “She deserves to be found.”  
Monroe wants to say that she deserves to be found too, that there’s family and friends waiting for her too, but he doesn’t know if it is true. So he smiles only helplessly.  
“Thank you. Take care.” He means it, he wants her to be safe. She turns around and walks away. 

Nick’s unconscious when they break down the door. He doesn’t hear the sirens of the ambulance and he doesn’t feel himself being lifted on the stretcher. He’s too far gone to be aware of what is happening to him. 

Monroe stares out the bus window into the rainy darkness of the night. He hardly took some time to pack his backpack for the trip, desperate to get on the next bus to Salem. He’s left a note for his parents on the kitchen table. They won’t be happy and he knows that he will be in a lot of trouble once he’s back. But he doesn’t care. He feels like this is his last chance to find Rosalee and tell her about his feelings for her. He knows that she hasn’t any feelings for him, but he needs to tell her anyway. He wants her to know that she’s not alone and that she is loved. Not only by him, but by her family as well. He wants her to come home. He traces the raindrops that run down the window with his eyes and he thinks that they look like tears. He just hopes that he’ll find her. 

Rosalee inhales the biting smoke trough a beak. The drug is so strong, that her eyes are rolling into her skull for a moment and she lets herself fall back into the red pillows that this tent of the Trauminsel she likes best, is cushioned with. Lying there, feeling like flying, she forgets everything.  
She forgets her loneliness and the cold, nestled deep into her bones, it all dissolves into a warm, colorful dream. Everything is perfect, at least for a few hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to say thanks for the readers that keep checking on this story and motivate me to update with such lovely comments. Thank you!!


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